


an artist's choice

by vaporstretch



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Romance, Atsumu as the muse, Implied Sexual Content, Kiyoomi as the painter, Loosely inspired by the Portrait of a Lady on Fire, M/M, Muse and Painter AU, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29394303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaporstretch/pseuds/vaporstretch
Summary: Kiyoomi had planted a chaste kiss on his temple then he whispered close to his cheek. "When you asked me if I had known love, I could tell you that the answer was yes." And Kiyoomi had tilted Atsumu's head with a tender motion of his hand so that they could properly lock eyes. "And I could tell you that it was now."----Kiyoomi as the painter commissioned to paint Atsumu's portrait. A short fic very loosely inspired by Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	an artist's choice

**Author's Note:**

> so i saw a bunch of sakuatsu painter x muse AUs going around twt and I decided to take part by writing this short thing inspired by one of my all time fave movies, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (fellow sapphics, if ya'll haven't seen this yet, what r u doing??). anyway, if it's a little all over the place, i apologize. i wrote this in a manic haze because the thought just wouldn't leave my head.
> 
> anyway follow me on twt i guess lol (twitter.com/vaporstretch__)

Kiyoomi halts mid-stroke of his brush, peering from behind the canvas to glimpse at the model. Hair spun gold like the embrace of spring morning, eyes a captivating honey brown that’s deceptive in their innocent charm. Miya Atsumu is heartbreakingly majestic to behold in his stillness, but once animated he becomes a fearsome hurricane of a man, quick to sweep you off of your feet and to snatch the last of your breaths from your lungs. 

Sunlight drips from the window behind him and an unmistakable sheen coats what little flesh is exposed--the curve of his neck, the slope of his nose, and the cut of his jawline, all of which Kiyoomi has touched with his hands and mouth the night before. 

Atsumu swallows and Kiyoomi's eyes travel to the lump that bobs along the column of his throat. And suddenly he's overcome with an ache to touch him as he did in the darkness of their chambers with only the humble flicker of candlelight to illuminate their tryst.

"Is something the matter?" Atsumu asks, his posture still immaculate.

Kiyoomi, intoxicated with his affection for this boy across the room, clears his throat. "I would like to make some adjustments, if you don't mind."

A sweet, but exhausted grin makes its way to Atsumu's lips. "Have at it."

The room is moderately large, but it feels small and as Kiyoomi walks ever much closer to his model, temperatures begin to rise in the room until it's palpably warmer than before. 

He places a hand on Atsumu's shoulder, gently pushing it as if he were delicately rearranging flowers in a vase. He then slightly changes the angle of his arm until his elbows become more relaxed. Kiyoomi is sharply aware of their close proximity to each other and the ache transforms into an unbearable fever once Atsumu tilts his face towards him.

"Are you now satisfied?" Atsumu whispers.

Kiyoomi locks eyes with his model and he feels breathless. Mouth parched, head spinning dangerously. Kiyoomi doesn't extend a reply because he's soon leaning into him, mouth capturing another eager pair of lips. Atsumu then deepens the kiss, wholly abandoning the long-held pose so that he could grab the back of Kiyoomi's head, the other hand meanwhile lunging for Kiyoomi's waist as he pulls him on to his lap.

An artist's curse is the ever looming possibility of finding their muse too irresistible. For even though artists have been regarded a cut above the rest due to their ability to create, they are still not immune to the desires of a mortal. They are, after all, still very much human.

Kiyoomi doesn't deny himself this opportunity to indulge, feeling more human than ever--more perceivably mortal--in the face of a creature who Kiyoomi has come to believe was thrust into his life to tempt him. He doesn't regret any of it, doesn't regret the burning touches that scale from his shoulders to the secret places that have him seeing and tasting a morsel of heaven.

He knows their days together are numbered. After all, paintings do not stay unfinished for all of eternity. And thus, the way they had held onto each other, depraved and desperate, would soon become lukewarm memories whisked away only to be dug up in some occasional bittersweet reverie once they become grey and wrinkled. 

_Do all lovers feel as though they're inventing something?_

Atsumu had asked him this once in front of the fireplace, the wild crackle of kindling competing with the rhythmic leaps of their hearts. Kiyoomi understood in its entirety what the question speculated. He understood how their togetherness had manifested things out of thin air, understood it was simply because their love had willed it into existence. But he also understood that day will soon turn into night and the sands of time will spare them no regard despite what they’ve invented. And so should it come time for him to leave, it will be up to him to make either the lover's choice or the artist's choice--whether he should grant Atsumu a painless farewell or should he selfishly pursue what is permitted of him albeit limited so he can immortalize his lover a final time.

Kiyoomi never did give him his answer, but he knows Atsumu wasn’t looking for one when he raised his query. And as they had made love that evening, the flames within them as hurriedly destructive as the ones that licked the darkened stone hearth of the fireplace, Kiyoomi had found unmistakable comfort in the fact that whatever this something may consist of will not have to be fleeting after all.

"I will remember this," Atsumu had told him. "I'll remember it just like I remember the first time I wanted to kiss you."

Kiyoomi had pressed a palm against his chest, his heart. "And when was that?"

"You didn't notice?"

"At the bonfire?" Kiyoomi had guessed.

"I wanted to, that time," Atsumu had confessed. "But that wasn't the first time."

Kiyoomi had planted a chaste kiss on his temple then he whispered close to his cheek. "When you asked me if I had known love, I could tell you that the answer was yes." And Kiyoomi had tilted Atsumu's head with a tender motion of his hand so that they could properly lock eyes. "And I could tell you that it was now."

They had fallen asleep like that, drenched in their unity and riding the waves of blissful ignorance. But unbeknownst to Atsumu, Kiyoomi had forthrightly cast out a wish into the universe, a wish to exempt Atsumu from the anguish of reality, the truth that will inevitably come to light in the daybreak.

Now in this hour of the present, a painting that is burgeoning on completion lays in wait a few feet from them. Kiyoomi feels Atsumu's arms tighten around him, feels the warm puff of breath against the skin of his neck. 

"I love you," Atsumu sighs. "I love you, I love you. I'll scream it from the highest peak if I must. I'll write it a thousand times over. I'll become all the poets so that every time love is written in an ode, a sonnet, a poem, I will make sure they'll be written to you. Of you."

Kiyoomi doesn’t know when exactly the first tear falls from his eyes. He only realizes when Atsumu brushes it away with a tender stroke of his thumb. He doesn’t tell Kiyoomi to stop, doesn’t reprimand him the least bit. Kiyoomi wonders if it’s Atsumu’s way to ensure that once they part, then the tears would have all been sufficiently cried out, wholly hung dry already so that not a single drop lingers on the day of Kiyoomi’s departure. If only Atsumu would know that no frantic amount of weeping at this point will save him from the agony of their future. 

“In any other circumstance, I would have chosen you,” Kiyoomi tells him. “I choose you now. I’ll choose you forever.”

Atsumu continues to hold him, not a word uttered between them both for the rest of the afternoon. And once Kiyoomi comes to pick up the brush again and Atsumu assumes the same pose as before, Kiyoomi begins to count each flick of the bristle and each time he dips the brush in the paint. He counts them all, wildly believing that he can counter the flow of time when he does. 

**Author's Note:**

> anyway i hope this was okay and again this was just a really random, rush fic because i had Thought that i couldn't shake off and i just needed to write them lol.


End file.
